How do I find wasted Amazon PPC spend?
Pull 60 days of search-term reports. Flag any search term with 15+ clicks and 0 orders as negative candidates. Flag campaigns whose 30-day ACoS is 2x your target with no volume gain as pause candidates. Between the two, most accounts recover 5% to 15% of budget in a week.
The audit checklist
Search terms with 15+ clicks and 0 orders: negative-exact. Campaigns 2x target ACoS with flat sales: pause or slash budget. Auto and broad campaigns with high spend and low harvest rate: convert to exact plus negatives. Placement multipliers on Rest of Search: usually delete.
Where sellers refuse to cut
Vanity keywords the brand loves but do not convert. Always let the CVR data decide, not the story.
Frequently asked questions
How often should I audit?
Monthly at minimum. Weekly if spend is above $10K/month.
Can I audit with just Amazon's UI?
Yes, but a pivoted export makes 60 days of data fast. Nova rolls this into per-SKU margin so you see waste against contribution margin, not just ACoS.
Is high ACoS always bad?
No. Launch campaigns and defensive campaigns can justify high ACoS. Judge by role, not by number alone.
See this in Nova
Nova surfaces this metric per SKU in near real time so you can act before your next monthly close catches it.
Try Nova free for 14 daysRelated questions
What percent of Amazon revenue should I spend on PPC?
A common range is 8% to 15% of Amazon revenue for private-label brands, tracked as TACoS. Under 8% often means you are under-invested and leaving growth on the table. Over 15% for a mature brand usually means acquisition costs are eating margin faster than repeat revenue can fund them.
How often should I harvest keywords from Amazon PPC?
Weekly for active accounts, bi-weekly for smaller ones. Pull the search-term report from the last 7 to 14 days, promote high-converting search terms into exact-match campaigns, and add wasteful ones as negatives. Any longer than 2 weeks and you burn budget on losers.
How do bid adjustments by placement work in Amazon PPC?
Amazon lets you multiply bids on Top of Search, Product Pages, and Rest of Search, up to 900% on each. Top of Search converts best on brand and high-intent keywords. Product Pages work for competitor conquest. Rest of Search is often the least profitable and rarely deserves a positive adjustment.
Should I run ASIN targeting on competitor listings?
Yes for defensive and conquest campaigns. Sponsored Products ASIN targeting on your own catalog defends your detail pages. Targeting competitor ASINs works best when your product has a clear differentiator (price, rating, bundle) that shows up in the sponsored slot.